The present disclosure relates generally to methods and systems for utilizing entities within user collections in software applications, such as hosted and/or network-accessible applications. In particular, methods and systems for extracting entity data from a globally-shared collection of data and inserting such data within a local or non-global user collection, and displaying entities in a beneficial graphical manner, are described.
Typical software applications enable users to add data records which are specific to that user or, in business scenarios, that user's organization. For example, a business user using a business software application may store within that application their business' customers, prospects, vendors, or other such entities. The process of storing entity data may involve typing information such as entity names, physical addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.
Modern application delivery systems include Software-As-A-Service (“SaaS”) platforms, whereby the application and the client are connected by a wide-area-network (“WAN”). Thousands or millions of distinct users of these hosted SaaS applications may connect to the same SaaS platform and application, yet they store their own individual data. Of course, software applications beyond SaaS applications exist and also utilize the benefits of modern networking.
Inevitably, data records being input and stored by one user of a widely-used platform or application may portray the same entity as inputted by another user. For example, one business user may type name, address, and phone details of a customer, and another business user, unknown to the first user, having the same customer, may also type nearly identical or identical details when inputting information about that customer.
It is inefficient, tedious, and thus problematic for a user to type information about an entity into a networked software platform when some or all of that entity information already exists within a collection of data within an accessible data storage, or when that information is available from any other data source connected to the networked software platform. Other data sources may include, for example, social media networks, business databases, consumer databases, etc.
Given the widespread use of social media networks and cloud-computing networked software applications, it is particularly troubling that data is available across networks but not exposed to users of software applications that routinely accept data input of such entities.
Furthermore, even if an application can presently group shared entities into user-collections, mere groupings of global records do not create editable records within a user collection, nor does the person grouping shared records control the data held within each record. As such, a basic intra-application grouping methodology is insufficient to address the needs of users who need to edit, preserve, and otherwise control the entity data, or who may need to use the entity data from within a different application than the application where entity data was originally entered. For example, in the case of a business user needing to maintain records of customers, the user presumably needs to edit, append, or delete data within each record, over time, and that user must have the ultimate control of whether data is modified, and that user may need to perform tasks, from within multiple applications, associated with the same customer.
Data associated with entities is often viewed in mundane textual formats. Textual representations of entity data fields, often in scattered parts of one or more user interface screens, can lead to users not seeing data fields being presented, not properly confirming data fields as accurate, and consuming more time than necessary absorbing displayed data. Textual output also does not satisfy the needs of users who may have access to graphic images, such as photos of persons or company logos. Even if textual output is accompanied by images, the lack of a suitable formatting of the output still adversely affects users.
Thus, there exists a need for methods or systems which expose global entity data records available to a software application, represent them in a visually helpful manner, and allow a user to quickly and efficiently select desired records to be used as part of a local, user-specific collection, whereby the collection of records would thereafter be controlled and editable by such user or his organization, and whereby data associated with a record could then be used by an application to perform a meaningful task. Examples of new and useful methods relevant to the needs existing in the field are discussed below.